The niche and paratextual industries of games and play

Author: celenascava

Over the last few months’ l have detailed the process of developing my board game ‘Where’s jimbo?!’. The process has been long, however, l have learnt valuable skills during this process. I was frightened at the idea of creating my very own board game. I thought the game l would come up with would be…

Last week l wrote a blog on the board game rules for ‘Where’s Jimbo?!’. After playtesting in class, however, certain mechanisms and rules have changed. There were a few issues during gameplay that we encountered. The feedback on how to fix these issues was provided by play testers, Max, Dylan, Ben and Marcus. This feedback…

GAME STORYLINE: Jimbo the Moodle has escaped from home, after seeing Chester the cat. The Robson family soon realises that Jimbo has escaped and begins to search for their beloved dog. Players work individually, one taking on the role of the dog and the others, the family members. AIM OF THE GAME: There are two…

Following on from last week’s blog post, ‘Individual Game: Prototype And Material Components’, my dog escape board game has developed, in regards to it’s mechanisms and finally has a name! The idea for my board game originated from true events, where my dog, Jimbo, escaped the house after seeing the cat next door. Therefore, the board…

This week l have been developing a prototype for my Dog Escape board game. Last week’s blog post detailed my initial ideas for the game. Some of these ideas changed and were modified, after testing them in class. We were first tasked to choose material components in order to begin our first prototype. I picked…

In class this week we brainstormed ideas for our individual game project. We had ten minutes to come up with ten ideas for our game. My list included: Dog Escape Running a Cinema Insta Famous Doggo Castle Rescue Supermarket Express Advice Game Egyptian game Trojan Horse Toys come to life Food takes over My top…

Over the last few weeks, my group and l have been developing our board game, ‘Restaurant Race’. In class we debated and discussed various ideas to improve on the mechanisms and narrative of the game. The group effort in developing our game was evenly spaced between each member in the group. The amazing illustrations were…

This week’s task was to develop our group board game’s mechanics. Our game was originally called ‘Mystery meat’, however we have changed the name to ‘Restaurant Race’ as it better suits the concept and aim of the game. Players race to fill the four categories (food quality, employees, customers and building) in order to receive…

This week in class we formed groups and came up with a concept/theme for a board game. Our board game is currently called, ‘Mystery Meat’ (a working title). Players race to receive five stars for their restaurant. They act as the manager of the restaurant overseeing four main categories, food quality, customers, employees and building.…

Image Source Don’t let the heavily detailed 8-page rule book scare you away from this board game! Takenoko was published in 2011, by Asmodee and designed by French designer Antoine Bauza. Takenoko is a beautifully constructed board game, that at first seems complex, however quite simple when understood. It took four Uni students around 40…